Unsocial Hours

[worker183]

I am a contractor and it has been recently changed so that i have to work weekend shifts (Unsocial Hours) every few month. Now i am user to working Mon-fri shifts.

We have Unsocial Hours teams that get paid more to work these shifts but they state they need more staff for these times. We get no extra pay for these shifts or extra holidays.

The way it works is we work mon-wed then off thur-fri then in sat-fri now this is a 7 day week is this even legal.

I know they are most probably getting around the law with it been in two different weeks us working the sat and sunday is a different week to mon-fri.

I guess what am trying to get at is this legal we work 8hr shifts if that helps :)

[bednobs]

its perfectly legal to pay you normal rate for your work at weekends
regarding working time - nothing to stop you working 7 days a week (as far as i know) there comes a problem when you work more than 48 hours a week on average over a 16 week period, which you are not (as far as i can see you are working a 10 day fornight, like most people)

[AlBags]

Check your contract and/or Company manual for a breach of it/them.
It's legal though.

[Buenchico]

With a few exceptions, every employee's contract is entirely separate to that of any other employee. For example there are offices in the City of London where two employees,sitting side by side and doing exactly the same job, might have vastly different contracts. Fred might be getting £20,000 p.a. with 28 days holiday and no 'perks'. Joe, on the next desk, could be getting £100,000 p.a. with 40 days holiday and loads of perks. That's perfectly legal and by no means uncommon.

So generally you've no right to expect to get what anyone (or everyone) else gets. The only exceptions are when different pay rates between different groups of workers result in unlawful discrimination (such as on the grounds of gender or because one group of employees are part-timers whereas the others are full-timer employees) or when there are standard pay scales agreed through collective bargaining or set by law.

There is no statutory right to a higher rate of pay for overtime or for working unsocial hours. (In some jobs, such as junior hospital doctors, the overtime rate is far lower than the normal pay rate).

So, unless you can show that unlawful discrimination is taking place, I can see no valid argument for getting a pay rise.

There's nothing illegal about working 7 days in a row. When I worked on the railways I was involved in setting up a new shift system. That resulted in a working 'block' consisting of 7 weeks, with several continuous stretches of 10 or 11 days work within it. (My colleagues unanimously voted in favour of that pattern of work because it also meant that we got several periods of up to 5 successive rest days within each 7 week block).

Chris

[worker183]

I wouldnt mind working the 7 days at work if it meant that we got a chunk of time off work but we dont so it aint so good lol

[louella]

I believe the governments working time directives require you to have a minimal number of hours/days off a week but I'm not sure you're right in thinking they can get around it by saying it involves two weeks. It's the length of your shift that probably gets them off the hook because you have 12hrs between shifts.. 8pm to 8am. Perhaps a government or union website would have more detailed information. Also you can be asked to work outside the regulations but you do have the right to refuse.